In Theaters: I decided to wait on American Doctor a bit when Cinemapolis announced that they were holding it over for another week, so that remains my top new movie priority. Cornell Cinema Director Molly Ryan singled out Filipiñana and Levitating when I interviewed her earlier this month, so I’m excited to see the former there on Saturday; I’m going to wait on the latter, which screens this Sunday, until it returns on October 2. We’re also taking the whole family to the Regal Ithaca Mall for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom this weekend, and I’m going to catch Resident Evil there or at Cinemapolis later in the week. Other new releases I’m interested in, but unfortunately don’t have time for, include If I Go Will They Miss Me, which opens at Cinemapolis tomorrow, and Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, which is there and at the Regal all week.
Of the stuff I’ve already seen, my favorite is The Odyssey, which continues its impressively long run at the Regal. I also enjoyed Spider-Man: Brand New Day, another summer stalwart still going strong at the Regal as we turn the corner into fall, and Chronovisor, which returns to Cornell Cinema on Saturday. Here’s what I said about that one on Letterboxd:
Highbrow Dan Brown that swaps long shots of the grand edifices that house the world’s secrets for extreme close-ups of the texts within, and which wears its 80s influences on its VHS sleeve. As a librarian, I appreciate its love for libraries and archives, but resent how it reduces the people who tend them to disembodied voices. Long live the old flesh!
Special events include three free screenings at Cornell Cinema: A Poet tonight, The Librarians (which has issues of its own, but does at least foreground my profession) on Tuesday, and Cinema Pe Cinema: The Theatres. The Movies. And Us on Wednesday. You can also see a 35mm print of Better Luck Tomorrow there tonight. Finally, additional noteworthy repertory options include North by Northwest at the Regal tomorrow, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior there on Tuesday, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire at Cinemapolis on Tuesday.
Home Video Recommendation: Last week I compared Ross McElwee’s latest documentary Remake to Journey to Italy, which reminded me that it had been a while since I last watched the Roberto Rossellini film I’ve long thought of as one of my favorites! So long, in fact, that I’d forgotten some of the plot details and was therefore pleasantly surprised to discover that they dovetail with one of my recent fixations, trying to spot the influence of James Joyce’s “The Dead” on, well, everything. Anyway, here’s what I wrote on Letterboxd last week after revisiting it:
I had completely forgotten that the plot is largely set in motion by the tale of a rain-soaked admirer at the window who died young, and that the married couple played by Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders are named Joyce! I’m fond of reading the Beatles song “For No One” as an “adaptation” of Dubliners‘ “The Dead” because while I understand that it isn’t really, Paul McCartney’s lyrics might as well be about Gabriel. What I like best about Journey to Italy is how it does the same thing in reverse by letting us wake up with Gretta the next morning: in the story she falls asleep immediately after puncturing her husband’s bubble, and then “snow was general all over Ireland.”
You can watch Journey to Italy on the Criterion Channel and HBO Max with a subscription, buy or rent it from a number of other streaming video platforms, and it’s available from the Criterion Collection as part of “3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman” Blu-ray and DVD box sets.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.
